Can you make yourself not laugh when necessary?

[RandomAnthony]

I was thinking about this yesterday. When something happens at which I want to laugh but shouldn't I struggle mightily to control myself and usually fail. I am not good at keeping my cool when I want to laugh. For example, maybe, oh, twelve years ago I was in an elementary school staff meeting and someone farted. Thank God I was sitting in the back of the room because I pretty much had to crawl under the table to keep from getting busted, and my colleague Carol was right there with me. Now, I have been able to keep it together when someone farted in my classes, but that's because I feel bad for the farter or whatever, but if that sort of issue is not around, well, I can't control myself.


And...you? Examples?

[Jonathan]

I was once at a lecture where the speaker was describing a scene in a 17th-century Dutch painting of a woman drawing water from a well with a bucket. The speaker was Dutch but was lecturing in English, and he unfortunately confused the word "bucket" with "buttocks." I laughed--everyone laughed--but I felt terrible because I make a million mistakes with foreign languages and have probably made worse ones than that myself.

[~Geektastic~]

I can usually keep the laughter in, but the expression on my face generally gives it away. My biggest issue used to be in my Art History class; one professor was particularly moony and would describe paintings in such a sensual manner it was almost obscene, so it was very difficult not to giggle like a little kid. He once asked me if I was feeling okay, since my face must have looked strained trying to keep the giggles at bay.

[ms.petra]

Jonathan, maybe he had one of our edited captions. :)

[Janice]

I'm successful at times. At other times it can be disastrous. I was in my teens, at a wedding, and my uncle was singing a solo. Some little kids in front of me started to laugh. I started too, and then couldn't stop. I was trying to hold it in so hard that the pew was shaking under my efforts. Yeah - not a good scene.

[[deleted user]]

This happens to me all the time. Usually I'm giggling all by myself, which tells my wife I'm got something demented I'm thinking about at that moment.

[Kevin]

no. i am terrible at that. weird times too like when i think of something funny at a funeral home

[Heidi]

NO. I'm horrible at this exercise.

I tend to overcompensate when I'm sad by trying to think of something funny and then I can't stop laughing/guffawing... i.e. funerals, 9/11 (while reading Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day). Sometimes I get lucky and laugh so hard, people think I'm having a somewhat appropriate reaction... you know, sobbing and can't catch my breath, but if I ever get to that point, I probably AM actually crying from laughing so hard.

[Stacia (the 2010 club)]

I have no control. I also laugh or smile at the most inappropriate times. You could tell me that my mom is in the hospital and I'll probably have a smile on my face instead of a shocked or sad look, and it's not because I'm happy. There is just something wrong with my reactions...I can't help it.

[Helena]

Nope. Can’t really control it- I have to look away from the subject and they could probably still see that I was laughing.

A lot of people are like that Stacia- I have a friend that smiles/laughs in any stressful or emotional situation.

[Stacia (the 2010 club)]

Good to know that I'm not the only one!

[Phoenix]

I can't control it all. I've laughed in the middle of parent/teacher conferences, having a serious discussion with another parent, when I'm supposed to be disciplining my kids, and at random times when I'm out shopping...by myself.

[Stina]

The only way I can control it is to avoid making eye contact with ANYONE. The second I meet someone else's gaze, I'm a goner.

I always felt like laughing while sitting through the prayer at my ex-boyfriend's parents' house at Sunday Dinner. There were so many Thees and Thous and I wasn't on board with the subject matter to begin with. It was damn lucky that everyone else had their eyes closed, so I could just stare at the mashed potatoes and control my breathing.

[Sarah]

I can usually hold it in, but sometimes it's hard. Eye contact can definitely set it off, like Kristina said.

One of my sisters and I kept cracking each other up at the rehearsals for our father's wedding three years ago. We actually had to orchestrate it so that we weren't facing each other as originally planned. There's a picture of her with the evilest look on her face that anyone has ever seen in a wedding photo, but it was just her trying to keep from laughing.

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

I swear it seems like the majority of RA's job involves being in a meeting, under a table, listening to farts. Every time he types that I get deja vu.

[Jammies]

Bun, I love the phrase "giggle loop," because that's exactly what I get into. I fell once at a friend's house and long story short, I could not stop giggling, and I made her giggle, and she kept yelling at me to stop laughing because she felt bad laughing while I was flat on my face on the ground in the dark and I couldn't stop giggling long enough to get up and now I'm giggling again thinking of it.

[Phil]

Was it audible, or merely olfactory?

[Félix]

Misha doesn't work in an old factory.